It’s been over a year since I wrote a post. I’d like to talk about why it’s been so long but we don’t have time for that because I need to tell you about “That Ultrasound”.
Over the last 14 years since I discovered I had fibroids, I have grown to detest the unavoidable “Ultrasound”.
Wikipedia says “Medical ultrasound (also known as diagnostic sonography or ultrasonography) is a diagnostic imaging technique based on the application of ultrasound. It is used to see internal body structures such as tendons, muscles, joints, blood vessels, and internal organs. Its aim is often to find a source of a disease or to exclude any pathology. The practice of examining pregnant women using ultrasound is called obstetric ultrasound, and is widely used.”
Over time, I graduated from the abdominal to transvaginal ultrasound scans. I can’t tell you which one I hated more but I’ll tell you why I absolutely dislike ultrasounds and the only time I wanted them was when I was pregnant and I needed to see my baby or hear her heartbeat.
So let me tell you why I dislike ultrasounds. In my opinion, my life got a bit derailed after my very first ultrasound in 2004. I had been sent to the ER by an urgent care doctor who thought I had hernia and I would need an immediate operation. On that fateful day, I had my first ultrasound done and the doctors announced happily that I wasn’t pregnant and that I just had fibroids. I immediately went into denial and let’s just call that the first of many life-altering ultrasounds.
As years passed and the fibroids grew, I would have to listen to the subsequent reviews of the ultrasound results – how the fibroids have grown, if they were pushing on some other organ, why I needed to remove them, what positions they were in, how large they were, how small they were, and on and on.
I can’t tell you how many ultrasounds I have had. But I can point to a few absolutely gut-wrenching ultrasounds. I need to go through them so you can understand why I really dislike them.
The second monumental ultrasound that changed the course of my life was in 2014, six months after I had completed by second myomectomy. The plan was at that six- month follow-up, our doctor could give us the all clear to proceed with trying to conceive. At that ultrasound I found out that after another surgery to remove the fibroids, they had come back again and I had about 5. I walked out of that appointment really feeling dejected like I was fighting a lost battle.
The next gut-wrenching ultrasound was the day I found out I was having a miscarriage. I had been bleeding for a few days and during the first ultrasound I had the day after the bleed started, we heard one of the heartbeats from the twins. I was relieved. A few days later, I had another ultrasound and they couldn’t hear any heartbeat but they said it could be because the bleeding – subchorionic hemorrhage.
“Subchorionic hemorrhage (subchorionic hematoma) is the most common sonographic abnormality in the presence of a live embryo. Vaginal bleeding affects 25% of all women during the first half of pregnancy and is a common reason for first-trimester ultrasonography”
Finally, I had the ultrasound that confirmed the miscarriage and for the first time in my life I felt like my soul was crushed. When the doctor told me the babies were gone and I could see it on the screen, it was like I became lifeless. I do not wish that feeling on my worst enemy. Everything went blank.
After my second IVF cycle and my pregnancy progressed, I would always ask about those fibroids and the doctor would try to redirect my thoughts. There was nothing we could do about them while my daughter was growing in the same uterus that housed the fibroids. Still, I worried about those damn fibroids.
After I gave birth to my daughter, I went through a phase. Let’s call it the “Leave-Me-Alone-Don’t-Poke-Or-Prod-Me” phase. I was just so grateful to have delivered a healthy baby that I didn’t want to see a doctor ever again, lol. I didn’t want any bad news. I didn’t want to be injected or scanned or assessed. I just wanted to be left alone. It’s not the best place to be because women need to pay attention to their bodies and get their regular physicals, checkups and preventative scans done.
So over two years after my daughter was born, I knew I had to do something about what was really going on. It was fear. I was afraid that the two years of peace would end and I’d walk out of another ultrasound appointment in dismay yet again – faced with difficult decisions and angry at the uncontrollable growths in my uterus.
So in September 2018, I got it together and scheduled and appointment. I remember prepping myself for the worst. I hate to admit it because I am a Christian and I should have more faith. I picked a number – 10. I told myself “Ok, I can’t have more than 10 even though it’s been 2 years. It can’t be worse than that right?”
The appointment was in a new clinic since we had moved to Seattle. I said hello to the radiographer and told her how I had a long history and I probably have a number of fibroids, on and on. She said ok, thank you, let’s see how you’re doing.
She started with the abdominal method and had a serious look on her face taking images and measurements and squinting and all kinds of things. She then went in the vagina with the transvaginal ultrasound probe. She took more images and measurements and I’m like oh lawd, make it stop. It felt like the longest ultrasound I had ever had.
When she was done, she asked me, “how many did you say you had”. I said at least 5. Then I quickly asked her, so how many did you find? What she said next shocked me.
“You don’t have any fibroids.” She continued, there is one small calcified fibroid.
So let’s get this definition out of the way first – ” A calcified fibroid is when a fibroid has reached the final stage of degeneration, or cell death and calcium deposits develop on the remaining fibroid tissue.” – Understanding Fibroids
The radiologist asked me to wait that she was going to have a doctor review the images before I leave. After 30 minutes she said, you’re good to go. I asked her again “Did you say you didn’t find any fibroids”. She said, no fibroids!
NO FIBROIDS!
HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Again, let me explain my disbelief. It’s not an excuse for my little faith. But after what feels like a lifetime of fibroids – Over 14-years worth and the better part of my adult life, I have never had an ultrasound check on my uterus that was positive. There was always a “but”, question or tragic discovery.
It took me a few hours after getting home before it really sunk in. I called my parents to tell them because in all those years, my ever-prayerful mother never stopped praying for me. As I told my parents, I started crying. At that moment, it finally dawned on me. For the first time in 14 years, I didn’t feel helpless about these things that were just growing uncontrollably within me.
It was because of the first surgery I had to remove the fibroids that I developed scar tissues which eventually caused my Fallopian tubes to become blocked. While fibroids don’t lead to infertility for many women, they caused my infertility.
So as I type this today. I desperately want to convey that feeling of being set free to you. The feeling of a weight being lifted that has hung on my shoulders for so long even though I ignored it.
I SAID TO MYSELF – I AM FIBROID FREE
I never thought I would say those words.
So I need to leave you with these words of life – “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,” Ephesians 3:20 ESV
So in this moment I want to encourage you. I don’t know what shape your light will take at the end of whatever tunnel you are going through. I don’t know what view you’ll see when you get out of the valley you are in. I do know that the worst moments in your life do not have to define you and that yes you can look forward to much happier days.
So I pray you swim, climb, crawl, walk, run or do what you have to do to keep moving forward because joy does come in the morning.
A prayer for strength:
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” – Ephesians 3:14-21 ESV
Heaven Is Here 